It may seem like ages ago, but it was only a few years back when the
economic imbalance between the rich and poor teams was widely viewed as
baseballs biggest problem.The steroid scandal that has swept over the sport has almost completely
blotted out our memory of this issue.The continuing Congressional hearings, revelations of past use of
performance-enhancing drugs by players like Jose Canseco, violations by active
players like Rafael Palmeiro, and grand jury testimonies by stars like Barry
Bonds and Jason Giambi have captured the public imagination in a way that
economic issues never could.

Still, we should not forget about monetary
considerations.Whether or not
certain teams can hope to compete for financial reasons is an important
issue.In a 2002 article I wrote
for the Baseball Guru, I argued that baseball should take three steps to
correct the economic imbalance: 1) Teams should continue to build new
fan-friendly stadiums to increase attendance and ensure long-term viability,
2) Baseball should move the Montreal Expos to Washington DC, and 3) Baseball
should increase is revenue-sharing percentages (Here is the article:
(http://baseballguru.com/egartman/analysisericgartman02.html).Since then, baseball has undertaken
all three initiatives.How has
this changed the financial structure of baseball?

Building New Stadiums

Since 2002, three new franchises have opened new stadiums: Cincinnati
in 2003, and San Diego and Philadelphia in
2004.Both Philadelphia and
San Diego experienced immediate boosts, with attendance in Philly jumping
from 2.2 million in 2003 to 3.2 million in 2004, the highest ever for the
franchise.Attendance fell to
2.6 million in 2005, but this was still higher than any season before the
1995 strike.San Diego also
enjoyed a huge gain in attendance, with 2 million fans going to see the Padres
in 2003 to 3 million in 2004, by far its highest ever single year
total.San Diego also drew an
impressive 2.8 million fans in
2005.Both facilities
were designed for baseball-only, a departure from their
predecessors.Both parks received
excellent reviews, with San Diegos Petco Park being named by Joe
Mocks Baseballparks.com as the New Park of the Year for
2004(see the review at:
http://www.baseballparks.com/Petco.asp).Cincinnati didnt do quite as
well, partially hampered by poor on the field performances, but also by the
fact that the Great America Ballpark isnt as impressive as Petco and
Citizens Bank.Attendance rose
from 1.8 million in 2002 to 2.3 million in 2003 and 2004, but fell to 1.9
million in 2005.

The result of these three new stadiums at this point seems to be long
term competitiveness for San Diego and Philadelphia, but continued difficulties
for Cincinnati.Part of the
reason can be traced to demographics.Philadelphia is one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the
country with 5.4 million people.It is therefore not surprising that once the Phillies got a nice new
park to replace the dingy Veterans Stadium that they would fairly quickly
become financially sound.Cincinnati, on the other hand, is home to only 2 million souls, one
of the smaller markets in baseball.San Diego, with 2.8 million people, is on the smaller side, but not
too small to compete, especially with a lovely new
park.

My conclusion?We are
seeing a continuation of the trend I first noted in 2002: We clearly
see that new parks have a major effect, turning some cites around, and helping
nearly all the others. But in terms of addressing baseballs economic
imbalance, new parks cant turn Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, or Cincinnati
into New York Other solutions must be
found.So how have the
other solutions worked?

Moving Franchises

In 2005, baseball returned to Washington
DC.The moribund Montreal Expos
finally packed up their bags and headed south to greener
pastures.In 2004, the Expos,
splitting time between home games in Montreal and Puerto Rico,
drew an anemic 748,000 fans, dead last in the majors.
Indeed, since 1998, the Expos
drew under a million fans every year except once, when they managed to draw
1,025,000 in 2003.On
top of the weak attendance, Montreal had an ugly stadium and little television
revenue.Clearly a change was
long overdue.Baseball finally
relented and the Expos headed to Washington
DC.How did the Expos do in their first year as the Washington
Nationals? Very well indeed, drawing a robust 2.6 million fans, good enough
to place 11th out of the thirty major league teams. Moreover,
the Nationals future seems bright, with a large and fairly wealthy population
of 4.7 million, a much larger television revenue than Montreal ever had,
and the possibility of new stadium in downtown Washington, DC, complete with
the luxury suites that account for such a large portion of the new parks
revenues.

Will other franchises be able to follow the success of the Expos moving
to Washington?At this point,
there is no clear successor to Washington
DC.No other city with such
a large population is without a baseball
team.The closest candidate right now is Portland,
Oregon.With 2.1 million people,
Portland is larger than several major league
towns.There has been
an interest in acquiring a baseball team in Portland, but there are still
ownership and stadium issues.Portland may be a home for another franchise in the future, but not
in the next couple of years.

Revenue-Sharing

In August 2002 MLB and the Players Union reached a deal in which
the percentage of revenue-sharing of local income rose from 20 percent to
34 percent, which was an annual net change from $169 million to about $258
million annually going from rich to
poor.In addition, baseball
instituted a luxury tax to cap team salaries, which has been respected by
all teams except the Yankees.Moving the Expos to Washington has also helped revenue-sharing, as
a team that collected money will now become a team that hands out
money.Has this helped the
lower-revenue teams?It is difficult
to say because of the widely different won-loss records of the teams in
question.The Tampa Bay Devil
Rays have still never had a winning season since their inception in
1998.The Pirates and Brewers still havent had winning
seasons in recent memory.The
Reds and Royals have struggled.But the Twins, As, and Marlins still managed to put winning
teams together, indicating that money isnt the only factor in a team
success.

The Expos are no longer on this list, and is questionable whether Oakland
ever should have been on this list (See Oaklands attendance record
at:
http://www.kenn.com/sports/baseball/mlb/mlb_oak_attendance.html).That leaves only seven teams.
The two cities with the biggest
upsides are Minnesota and Florida.New stadiums have been proposed in both cities, but have not yet received
approval. Things may be coming
to a head in Miami, with the Marlins lease at Pro Player Stadium ending in
2010.To be successful in South
Florida a retractable-roof stadium is a necessity due to the rain and
heat.But these domes are expensive,
and a deal has yet to be reached.If it is not, Florida may well be the next team to move.
Should Miami receive its dome, however, with a population
of 5 million people there is a very good chance it will bring in large crowds
and be baseballs next success story.
The Marlins drew over 3 million
people in their first season, and they may be able to reclaim the crowds,
but folks arent willing to put up the
weather.Attendance figures
bear this out, with attendance bottoming out at measly 784,519 in
2002.

A similar situation exists in Minnesota.A target of contraction by MLB in 2002, the Twins have brought in
more fans with winning teams.Still, attendance is generally under 2 million a
year.The biggest single factor
is probably the Metrodome, an ugly throwback to another
era.While fans across the country
revel in their glorious baseball-only stadiums, Twins fans must endure an
awkward football-baseball hybrid.Negotiations are under way for a new baseball-only facility, and if
it passes, baseball in Minnesota will most likely be guaranteed for the
long-term.With a population
of around 3 million, Minnesota is a good bet for healthy attendance figures.

Three of the franchises
in question- Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee- have built new stadiums that
have helped boost attendance, but this has not ended their financial
troubles.These are all smaller
cities.Milwaukee is by far
the smallest MLB town with only 1.5 million
people.There are several larger
cities in the US that do not have baseball
teams.By building new stadiums,
all three towns assured that baseball will stay for the long term, as well
as register a moderate increase in
attendance.But these cities
will always have a hard time keeping up with the big
boys.The same might be said
of Kansas City, which already had a lovely baseball only stadium, but still
struggles due its small population.

That leaves Tampa, with a population of 2.4
million.Tampa drew over 2 million only one time, in its inaugural
year of 1998, and attendance has averaged around 1.1 million in the last
few years.There are two reasons
for this poor attendance.First,
is the teams weak performance on the
field.Second, the Tropicana
Dome is not a good place to watch
baseball.Unfortunately, there
are no plans right now for new baseball-only
facility.A new stadium would
certainly help, but Tampa would most likely be akin to the franchises in
Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and Kansas
City:viable, but marginally
competitive.

Thus as I see it, two cities, Minnesota and Florida, hold the future
in their own hands.A new stadium
will help turn these franchises around like new stadiums have in Cleveland,
Texas, Baltimore, Seattle, Houston, San Francisco, San Diego, and
Philadelphia.That leaves only
five cities that are handicapped by their small size: Tampa, Cincinnati,
Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and Kansas City.
But these franchises problems are partially self-inflicted,
a result of bad baseball moves.Signing free agents like Derek Bell, Jeffrey Hammonds, Greg Vaughn,
and Jose Canseco limited what these teams could
do.These teams need to start
helping themselves.Still, there could be some more
revenue-sharing.If these two
steps are taken, we may not hear of economic imbalance again for a long
time.There is still some more work to be done, but the crises
of contraction, the vagabond Montreal Expos, and not enough revenue-sharing
have passed.Baseball should
be proud of its record.Indeed
it is a measure of the success of baseballs economic initiatives that
we dont hear much about monetary issues
anymore.Hopefully in a few
years we will be able to say the same about the current steroid situation.